Hit the jump to see still alternative opening and closing title sequences for Marvel's The Avengers superhero extrava, in addition to quotes from the sequences' creator, and more!

One of many memorable attributes of Marvel's The Avengers superhero assembly was the title sequences beautifully crafted by Method Design. And with the Joss Whedon-helmed spectacle soon to be available for home viewing, Creative Director Steve Viola has shared with Art of the Title info & images regarding the their creation. Featuring iinitial designs and a snippet of the opening title in original quality, observe below.

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“As we honed in on our primary concepts, we had about seven that covered Joss’ key themes while incorporating others, from the Tesseract to New York City. The chosen concept actually went through a few iterations before it was ready to show. Originally, we were going with an abstract fly-through of the Helicarrier where we would come across some of the heroes’ items, but it wasn’t post-battle and it was just as much about the Helicarrier as the characters – which is how I originally pitched it to our concept artist, Chris Sanchez. I wanted something that dropped us into the high-tech world of S.H.I.E.L.D and stepped back from the actual characters so we could get a feel for them through their areas in the flying S.H.I.E.L.D. base. We finally agreed it shouldn’t be about the Helicarrier, but simply about the heroes and what they went through – the Helicarrier was just a location. The idea was to approach it almost like a documentary filmmaker examining the damage and cost of war… “real stakes.””

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“The one other concept that went forward was our Tesseract concept, which became the driving force behind the logo treatments at the beginning of the film. It was great because Joss saw the initial pitch boards and knew that “Battle Scars” was what he wanted. We didn’t have to explore variations or other options – we were able to get right into pre-production. We worked for a couple of weeks to flesh out the rest of the sequence and the in-between frames and by January we had a full sequence boarded. We worked up some transitions to connect characters, which Joss and Marvel really liked, so we added a few more. As we moved into animation, we added storyboard frames using just sketches until we had the right sequence.”

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“Some characters didn’t have much to go on without using their actual bodies, and getting each credit on the respective objects proved difficult without making it feel disjointed. Characters such as the Hulk and Black Widow really didn’t have many assets to go on. There was a lot of discussion about whether we wanted to represent anyone else, such as Loki. Ultimately, Marvel and Joss agreed that we should stick to the key members of S.H.I.E.L.D. We added Nick Fury’s holster later on. Black Widow’s stinger was added early – before we even saw what it looked like in the film – but her belt was the last item we added. The Hulk was by far the trickiest since he has no suit, armor, or weapons. We decided to focus more on Bruce Banner’s iconic elements: his glasses, his laboratory, and his clothes.”

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“There were some similarities as both [Captain America and Avengers] directors preferred a certain level of simplicity with the typography so as not to distract or overwhelm the visuals. You’ll also notice that both sequences have slightly dimensionalized type that lives in-scene with the rest of the imagery, rather than being comped over picture. As a whole, we’ve found Marvel to prefer that the audience be immersed in the sequence, which is a really great thing to strive for when creating these sequences.”

“[The mid-credits teaser] acted as a great tie-in. The idea to connect the two happened early on, though the use of Iron Man’s chest repulsor transmitter as the link evolved through several iterations. I think details like these really illustrate how finely tuned Marvel is to their audience. Not only have they moved the teases from after the crawl to after the main-on-ends, but now they seamlessly link to one another.”

Marvel Studios presents in association with Paramount Pictures “Marvel’s The Avengers”--the super hero team up of a lifetime, featuring iconic Marvel super heroes Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow. When an unexpected enemy emerges that threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, Director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins.

Starring Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson, & directed by Joss Whedon from a screenplay by Joss Whedon, “Marvel’s The Avengers” is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series “The Avengers,” first published in 1963 and a comics institution ever since. Prepare yourself for an exciting event movie, packed with action and spectacular special effects, when “Marvel’s The Avengers” assemble on May 4, 2012. The film is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. In addition to "Marvel's The Avengers," Marvel Studios will release a slate of films based on the Marvel characters including "Iron Man 3" on May 3, 2013!; & “Thor 2” on November 8, 2013.

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